food in Moldova

is good, unhealthy, and just the way i like it.

breakfast: tea or coffee, fresh bread, preserves, cheese, pork, and perhaps a yogurt. this is the lightest meal of the day...

my host mother, elena, insists on tea, even if i have an 8am appointment. "mike, xoches kuschatz? ... nyet, ne xochu" but she prepares food anyways. i can't say that i'm eating healthy, definitely not losing weight, more like an unhealthy equilibrium. maybe i'll get a nice parasite and drop a few kilos. i'll just head to the villages for that... why am i writing about such issues? it's a blog, after all.

my audience has expanded to the point of censoring, unlike my previous blog. but... please comment!

nora, you'll be happy to know that for the past two days i've had butter at every meal. yup, living up to my name, which had almost died in the tofu cum healthy confines of ithaca, NY. i know you're all about that ... if only they had a decent friend chicken place.

but a word about Russian/Moldovan fast food. they basically consist of mediocre kebabs stuffed with mayo and fries, or pirozki. fried bread. stuffed with meat, cabbage, onions, pototoes, etc. two of them will make you sweat out a good grease ball on a hot day and will fill you up. they run about 2.5 lei, or about 20 cents. get two or three, throw in a bottle of water, and you have a perfect meal at the central market for about a buck. who needs mcdonalds when you can eat this good. but i must say, buying them is an experience. i have what one would call survival russian: if not understood on the first try, it usually doesn't succeed.

as a rule, most sellers of friend bread are women well past their prime, with mustaches of varying lengths and thicknesses. all are nice, and my quick witted "devushka" will usually gain me a glimpse of some precious metal, and a heartly laugh.

off to the bulge, soon...